Richard Hicks' Forefront TMG Blog

The Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) tool, developed by Microsoft Premiere Field Engineer (PFE) Clint Huffman, is a very powerful free tool available on CodePlex that makes the analysis of logged performance data much simpler. The utility is used to automate the assessment of a performance monitor counter log (in any format) and compares that information to known thresholds provided with the tool. It produces reports in HTML format and will generate alerts when thresholds are exceeded.

The current release (v1.35) is written in VBScript. The v2.0 release of PAL has been completely rewritten in PowerShell, and is now available as a very early technology preview. PAL does not require installation, but it does have some dependencies; PowerShell v1.0 or higher, Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5 SP1, and Microsoft Chart Controls for Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.

PAL includes threshold files for most major Microsoft products, including IIS, MOSS, SQL Server, BizTalk, Exchange, and Active Directory. ISA and Forefront Threat Management Gateway support will be added in the near future.

Download Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) v2.0 Technology Preview today!